Separation City (movie poster)

Famous for his commercials, New Zealand director Paul Middleditch continues his crossover into feature filmmaking with the adult dramedy Separation City. Unless you’re a trans-Tasman film buff, odds are you haven’t heard of Paul Middleditch. You’re more likely to have heard of his famous characters, namely the disgruntled worker from the Yellow Pages ad who turned the line “not happy Jane” into a mainstream catchphrase.

Coming from a background in directing commercials, Middleditch says humour is an element he has carried across from his early projects into his feature filmmaking career. It is certainly key ingredient in his most recent work Separation City, which follows the intertwining lives and relationships of several adults living in Wellington, New Zealand.

“A lot of the best films I’ve seen use humour to look at the dark things, like Little Miss Sunshine,” he says.
“I wanted Separation City to be a commercially entertaining film that has real emotional hurt to it and a lot of the material is quite heavy.
“But it really has heart to it.
“I think I wanted to make the film insightful, but very amusing in its insight.”

Unlike his earlier films A Cold Summer and Terra Nova which used local actors, Middleditch says he has assembled “a United Nations cast” starring acclaimed character actors from around the world. In the lead roles are Australian actors Joel Edgerton and Les Hill, New Zealand actress Danielle Cormack, German actor Thomas Kretschmann from such films as The Young Victoria, Valkyrie and Wanted. and British actress Rhona Mitra (above) who was most recently seen in Underworld 3: Rise Of The Lycans as Sonja.

It took considerable effort on Middleditch’s behalf to convince Kretschmann to do the film as it was his first foray into comedy.

“He said to me `I’m German, I’m not funny” he says.
“I managed to convince him and he loved it, he had a lot of fun with it.”
Moderate star power aside, Middleditch says the key to Separation City is the story, written by former political cartoonist Tom Scott.
“I was approached to do the film because they were looking for a comical, New Zealand director and Tom Scott had put together this funny, enlightening script about what can happen in a long term relationship and marriage,” he says.
“It’s about how you start to redefine yourself after having children and the marriage can be neglected.
“In the movie two people’s self-esteem is through the floor and by chance they meet and get excited by each other.
“It has a very positive, uplifting message that nobody is perfect.”

Middleditch says he’s “very proud” of the performances from the ensemble cast, particularly Joel Edgerton (above) in a rare comedic role and close friend Les Hill, best known for his role in Underbelly. Dr Who ring tone of Les on the phone, have to go in interview bro:

“We have worked together on a lot of commercials but this is his (Les Hill) first major comedy role and he’s hilarious,” he says.
“He’s probably the funniest thing in the film, like a Jack Black sort of character.
“He trusted me to cast him as Harry, a dry-as-a-biscuit political journalist, and he had to put on weight for the role.
“He’s usually a pretty healthy sort of guy so he loved the idea of getting off the plane and going to McDonalds.”

As if to illustrate their friendship and in a stroke of perfectly choreographed timing from the Gods, the Doctor Who theme song goes off in the background as Middleditch’s mobile phone starts ringing and he has pause the interview.

“Hang on one second, it’s Les,” he says.
“Hi bro, I’ve got to go, I’m doing an interview.”

Resisting the urge to make a comment about the use of the word `bro’ amongst Kiwi’s, I instead ask him about working with cinematographer Steve Arnold who, after working on the John Malkovich film Disgrace, has shot another visually stunning film in Separation City. Wellington has never looked quite so beautiful on film, with Arnold applying his skill for capturing beautiful images to the New Zealand landscape just as easily as he does in the streets of Berlin.

“Working with Steve…I’m a very visual director and I wanted to give the film a very exciting, cinematic feel,” says Middleditch.
“We shot a small amount in Berlin and we had a beautiful shoot there in mid-winter with only four hours of shootable light to work with.”

With Separation City now a finished product and screening in cinemas nationally, Middleditch says he has been up to his old tricks creating yet another comical character in an ad, this time Barabara who lives in Bank World from the new ANZ ads (below). Middleditch has also been in the US looking at several projects, including developing a film in Australia.